The Washington Nationals surprised nobody but their own fans by releasing pitcher John Patterson today. I was surely not alone in being taken by surprise. A lot of us had hopes that he could still play the role of staff ace, having been mesmerized by his flashes of brilliance in 2005 and at the very beginning of the 2006 season, before arm trouble got the best of him.

But after failing to hit 90 mph in Spring Training, and stinking it up this week in his final spring training game in front of Nats owner Mark Lerner, the team clearly had seen enough.

The remarkable thing is that he wasn’t traded or waived. Patterson’s release means that general manager Jim Bowden couldn’t get a single bite on Patterson via trade. If no major league team was willing to take on Patterson’s $850,000 contract, then you know we’ve all been drinking the Kool Aid. Good luck John (just not against the Nats).